This Politico story is now my favorite news story evah! Smear quotient 100%, and 100% contentless. A Pultitzer-worthy piece if there ever was one.

A GOP pollster, Chris Wilson, volunteers that in the late '90's, he was in a restaurant with Cain, and that Cain was up to his usual nasty sexual harassment tricks. He refuses to say what was said or done, or who was there, but everyone was really uncomfortable.

I'm not quite a Cainian, but this is a good illustration of how the GOP powers that be have it in for Cain, to put such a non-story out there. Goes without saying that the press would pick it up.

The other Washington bs follow-up, someone close to one of the original NRA "settlees" claims that she doesn't want to come forward at all.

"Despite her lawyer's claims, a woman who accused Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment in the 1990s is reluctant to talk about the episode in public."

It may well be that she changed her mind when she got an inkling of how big the attention would be. But generally speaking "despite her lawyer's claims" is something for the bar to look into. (And he could have an interest here that diverges from his client's.)

This AP story claims, "no decision has been made about asking the National Restaurant Association to release the woman from a confidentiality agreement" despite the fact that this lawyer publicly demanded exactly that, according to other press.

In a sense, the sex scandal was a partial relief to Cain in deflecting scrutiny of his other gaffes.

1. His claim that China is now seeking a nuclear capacity and is now building aircraft carriers to challenge Americas.a. China has had the bomb since 1964, and now has missiles aimed at the US, which probably would shock Cain as well.b. China now has bought a part-built Soviet try at an aircraft carrier the Russians abandoned.

2. He stated that he is unfamiliar with the "Neocon" term and doesn't really know what that means.

It fits in the template conservative pundits are pushing - that ignorance shows you are Authentic and a non-Elitist Everyman.

Are all these idiots trying to lose? Stop this sniping! The economy sucks, unemployment is at 9+%, and the dumbass health bill is about to go into effect. Get back to sniping at Obama, not each other. Sheesh.

My entire family didn't have the vote until sometime in the 1890s. Feminist history is lie after lie.

Everybody in my family, male and female, was a disenfranchised German or Irish peasant until they emmigrated to the U.S. in the 1880s. Women got the vote in, what, 1920? 20 to 30 years after the men in my family got the vote.

So where did I say I was speaking for all women? Baby aspirin won't save you when your blood pressure goes sky high, what will happen then is that you will have what is called a hemorrhagic stroke , because you blow a blood vessel, as opposed to an ischemic stroke , which is caused by a blood clot.

He stated that he is unfamiliar with the "Neocon" term and doesn't really know what that means.

I don't know what "neocon" means, either. I've asked a billion people, including those who have used it, and never gotten a straight answer. It sounds like it should mean "new conservative", which doesn't sound like much of an insult, but it's always used in some way that seems to mean "baby raper."

I'd think anyone who directly answered a question that contained the word "neocon" without asking for clarification would be foolish.

Allie's Apple, I think that you are pretty much an all around horrible person who takes joy in others' pain, so please don't take this in any way as some attempt to be friendly, but Shouting Thomas lives entirely in a fantasy world about what people say, think, and feel when it comes to women's issues or "feminism".

There's no arguing with him, because what he sees anyone to have said will in no way relate to what they actually said. Although he sometimes has interesting things to say on other topics, he's best to be ignored on this topic.

I'm still waiting for evidence of some kind. There are an amazing number of people talking about Cain's transgressions who just coincidentally can't talk about Cain's transgressions. No names, no dates, no places, no events. Somewhere, sometime, Cain did something to somebody, isn't it awful?

This is going to hurt one candidate or another. It will hurt Perry if his campaign leaked the information, and it will hurt Cain if not.

This is where Republicans are different from Democrats, and I think that it has to do primarily with the protection a candidate gets from the MSM. Nevertheless, Dems don't seem to hold grudges against candidates that slime other Dem candidates. Republicans do tend to hold Rep candidates accountable who slime other Republican candidates.

Now, the one exception here might be the Romney camp. If Romney's people were behind it somehow, they might be able to get away with it, because one of the big things that has been holding him back so far is that he hasn't appeared tough enough to take on President Obama.

No joke, I took an entire class on neoconservatism in college and I'm kind of in the same boat. I mean, we read buckley, and friedman and a few other authors...but now it seem neocon tends to be popularly used to describe people who are just in favor of the war/hawkish? That was more when the war first started, that's died down a bit. But it never seemed to be used to apply to the fiscal side.

No wonder Ricky Perry was so giddy at the New Hampshire speech over the weekend. His Texas Mafia (a/k/a his Campaign) had assured him that his opponent was taken care of with carefully crafted rumours that cannot be disproved.

Now old Ricky can shed his snake skin and re-introduce himself one more time...but the rattlers noise will still be heard coming out of his Campaign.

Heck, forget evidence. I'm still waiting for some kind of specifics. I don't know if he told someone her dress was pretty, or if he made a habit of waving his weiner around whenever women would walk into the room.

Why won't someone tell me what he actually that I'm supposed to be upset by?

Mormon women had the right to vote in Utah. Women in NYC under Tammany Hall did not.

The good ol' days-- Tammany had issues but was actually a somewhat PC..organization (until Ellie Roosevelt took care of it). And lets not forget the status of the.. the non-mormons(and hispanics, blacks, Lamanites,etc) in 19th cent. Utah--at least those who managed to survive. As Mark Twain knew.

It is unusual, so maybe it is a flag, but personally, I find it kind of refreshing. I really don't want to feel like I have to embrace the candidate's wife or family, particularly when they inisist that the wife play the good little housewife role for the cameras. Show me someone who can do the job, not someone who's wife has a great cookie recipe.

Garage inserts the JSO "No Quarter" attack on Cain which is the continuation of innuendo in place of facts. Here is my response in JSO.

Shame seems to be an over-used word in Wisconsin, but the innuendo in this piece is shamefully exceeded by the lack of facts, the use of stolen (and incomplete) accounting records and a basic lack of understanding about accounting.

Without third party review, these numbers are worthless to make any case about anything. You failed to point out that the accounts receivable for FOH no longer exist in June -- and the possibilities for disposing of the the AR can be almost anything from correction of a posting error to receipt of cash to cover the outstanding balance. Whatever the answer is -- there is no evidence presented or obviously available to suggest a wrong doing. But let's not let that get in the way of spew from liberals like Daniel Bice or Chucky over at LGF.

As usual "John Henry" invents history to suit his purposes. Suffrage-rights were left up to States, UNTIL the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. At that point the Fed law (ie, US-Con) took precedence over any states which did not allow women to vote (many western states already allowed for it). Ergo, the 19th Amendment did grant women the right to vote across the US, and made it law.

When I read Deace's comments I thought there goes Iowa. Amid all the political smoke emanating from DC and NY, Deace put Cain's MO in terms that resonate over coffee. The questionable behavior of husbands (and wives) is the basis of a great deal of discussion in small town America -- as it is everywhere.

"Neocon" means new conservative, and the implication is that you used to be a leftist. Typically it's a reference to somebody who was a Marxist/Leftist in the 1960's, and is now very vocal on the right. (One day somebody will call Ann Althouse a neocon, if they haven't already).

Neocons weren't just hippies, though. They were real Marxists. A lot of the neocons are Jewish. David Horowitz, Irving Kristol, John Podhoretz, Roger Simon, guys like that.

All the real neocons are 60-year-olds, at least. Neocons are known for losing friends when they made their political journey. Basically they converted, politically. They are reds who became republicans.

cedarford,If neocon is means anything other than hawkish Jew, or a codeword for Jewish, I dont know. And I have tried to figure it out. I can't blame Herman for not wanting to step in that mess. And, I doubt his interviewer could have provided a coherent definition off the top of his head. Just more gotcha crap.

Smells to me a lot like current shocking disclosures bear the handiwork of a certain interested party (*cough*karlrove*COUGH*) who knows that Romney is the only Republican candidate with a chance in hell of beating Obama in 2012.

I doubt either Cain or Perry will drop out any time soon, their recent scandals notwithstanding.

Recall that McCain flamed out well before any other candidate in the 2008 primaries but stayed in the race while everyone else quit after THEIR flame-outs. That lowered standard of utter shamelessness is the order of the day in the GOP leadership from now on (& a good thing too, given what they're offering).

Yeah, sex sells viewers to sponsors ... but Cain REALLY needs to worry about the apparent illegality of his initial campaign financing. A bad rep can fade or even be overcome - but felony indictments? Not so much.

The problem, I think, is that in practical terms, whatever meaning that term had initially has changed. It's turned into a generic republican insult. Probably when aimed at bush it was meant to say he liked war. That's all I got.